Harry Lönnroth is Professor of Scandinavian Languages at the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥. He studies Swedish language history and Scandinavian philology from the Middle Ages to the 1900s, whether it is Old Swedish courtly poetry, town scribes of the 1600s or the linguistic biography of architect Alvar Aalto. Lönnroth’s research deepens the picture of the linguistic activity and literary culture of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period.
Harry Lönnroth (born 1975 in Tampere) started as Professor of Scandinavian Languages at the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥ in August 2017. From 2011 to 2017, he worked as Professor of Swedish at the University of Vaasa, where he also served as Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Head of Unit for Scandinavian Languages. In Jyväskylä, he has chaired the Campus Development Group (2018–2021) and the Cultural Activities Working Group (2023–2024).
Lönnroth studied Scandinavian Languages at the University of Tampere, where he graduated as Master of Arts in 2000 and PhD in 2006. In addition, he studied general linguistics, teacher's pedagogical studies, Norwegian language and culture, and the history of ideas and learning, also studying at Uppsala University. Lönnroth is Docent of Scandinavian Languages at the University of Tampere (2009) and Docent of Scandinavian Philology at the University of Turku (2011). He has worked as a fixed-term professor in both Turku (2007) and Tampere (2010).
Lönnroth's legal philological dissertation on the judgment book of the town of Ekenäs 1678–1695 was finished in 2006 and published the following year in the series of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters. Lönnroth's research has focused mainly on Scandinavian philology and Swedish language history from the Middle Ages to the 1900s, often in close collaboration with historical sciences, and he has also written on sociolinguistics and translation studies. He has also worked as a translator; The Finnish Literature Society, Vastapaino and Warelia have published his translations.
From 2008 to 2010, Lönnroth worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Academy of Finland-funded project "Linguistic change in an industrial town: Swedishness in Tampere, 1779–2000". He is currently leading the Kone Foundation-funded project "City scribes in the kingdom of Sweden in the early modern period (1614–1714): Their profession, agency and use of language". Lönnroth is a member of Sällskap för östnordisk filologi's committee (2017–), the editorial board of Diplomatarium Fennicum (2018–), and a member of the Network for Early Modern Research in Finland (2020–) and Glossa (2023–). From 2019 to 2023, he was editor of the journal LexicoNordica. From 2024, he is editor of the journal Folkmålsstudier.
Lönnroth has received the following recognitions for his work: Kungl. Humanistiska Vetenskaps-Samfundet i Uppsala (foreign member 2012), Kungl. Samfundet för utgivande av handskrifter rörande Skandinaviens historia (foreign member 2012), Kungl. Skytteanska Samfundet (correspondent member 2017), Finnish Historical Society (researcher member 2016), member of the Finnish Cultural Foundation's Support Association (2016), The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland dissertation prize (2007), Finnish Academy of Science and Letters dissertation prize (2007), and ultimus doctor of the University of Tampere's Conferment of Doctoral Degrees (2010).